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This podcast was remarkably interesting and, at two and a half hours, took me awhile to get through. Mostly because I tried to transcribe as much of the edited dialogue as possible. For anyone who read the sides for this ep, most, if not all of the dialogue, was filmed. And while on paper the dialogue seemed to make Carolanne less of a shrew, whether it was the actress or the direction or both, hearing that dialogue spoken she could have come off worse than she did on screen. Not to mention the ep would have dragged. Talk about wordy. I’m actually glad we had the B storyline with Tyrol and Cally now. There was practically no adjustments made to their scenes. It was the Adama/Carolanne stuff that was significantly restructured with scenes moved around, scenes edited way back, and Carolanne’s words being superimposed over footage of just Adama.

Also, pennyfeline transcribed some of the dialogue and I think she did a better job then me in a few spots. Her post can be found HERE.

Ron felt that the young marriage, a couple just getting started, vs the divorced couple was a good juxtaposition.

The sudden appearance of Carolanne in Adama’s bed perhaps would have been less jarring if we got a better impression she was only there in his imagination. As Private Jaffey knocks on the door, Carolanne says, “It’s too early. You’re admiral now, right? Tell them to go away.”

Tigh brings up that it’s been “forty-nine days since we’ve seen the bastards.” (Maybe he should have sat in Lee’s briefing? ;)

Adama comments to Carolanne that it has been 26 or 27 years since they were married and she clarifies it has been 29 years. (OK, Jamie can play 29, but I can’t buy Lee is 29. I mean it’s been maybe four years since the attacks so he was 25 in the mini? And a captain. Not buying it.)

Adama states Carolanne’s full name as Carolanne Rosafina (sp?) Adama.Carolanne: So young and broke and totally crazy about each other…some good times, but more bad.

Someone in the editing room questions why they changed the name to Carolanne since she was clearly called Caroline in the mini. Ron states that it’s Eddie who caught it and changed it during filming because he had said it on the show before so they went with it. (I’m confused. EJO/Adama used the name Anne in ‘Scattered’. Is Ron saying that came up with Carolanne to correct that error? )

Apparently Aaron Douglas made up Seelix’s name.

They did not want Carolanne to feel like Six (the one in Baltar’s head). I’m not sure how successful they were with that.

Much of Carolanne’s dialogue was cut to make her more mysterious and interesting.

Um, there was a shot of Adama on the toilet (I think when Tigh walks into his quarters) which was mercifully cut. Even Ron said it was too much.

Carolanne: This time last year you were circling New Caprica and working on a rather suave (HA!) mustache and you were totally miserable. Adama: My happiness has never been a high priority, personally or professionally.

At this point Ron comments that they are going to lose a lot of this sequence.

Carolanne: Oh my god(s), I can’t believe you saved this. Adama: You are cordially invited to celebrate the tenth anniversary of William and Carolanne Adama…Carolanne: It was a hell of a party. You should have been there.Adama: I had no choice. The entire battle group was deployed to handle the riots on Arelon (sp). We’ve been through this before.Carolanne: Old arguments are all we have left. Is that why you keep doing this? So you can apologize yet again? Settle some old score.Adama: I do it to try and remember the good times. Carolanne: Then you should have cracked open a bottle with Saul and left me in the bottom drawer because our problem went a lot deeper than one bad night.

Carolanne makes a comment about “other women in Adama’s life” and she knows she’s not the last one. At first I thought it was a reference to him being unfaithful, but then additional dialogue led me to believe she just means Laura.

Carolanne: …The man who single-handedly saved the fleet from Cylon destruction. Admirals don’t need anybody, not friends, not lovers. It would certainly explain your new found vow of celibacy. Is that why I’m here? To play matchmaker? You and I both know your friend Laura has been dropping hints. Adama: Is that before or after I threw her in jail?Carolanne: Maybe she’s got a thing for bad boys? She wouldn’t be the first. (Hmmm, maybe this is what attracted Carolanne to Adama if, in fact, she didn’t really love him.) It wasn’t so long ago she was a third rate secretary of education. (OK, since this Carolanne is a manifestation of Adama’s mind, revealing his thoughts and what he believes to be true, does he feel this way about Laura? It makes no sense.) And Bill Adama was demoted to just a caretaker of a museum. Adama: You make it sound like the Cylons did us a favor.Carolanne: No favors, no favors at all. You may have been given the command that you always wanted. But the price that you've paid, the sheer loneliness…

As Adama is walking down corridor:

Carolanne: Those sidelong glances. That really use to get to you.Adama: I don’t ever remember it intimidating you.

Ron felt it seemed as if Adama was directly responding to Carolanne, answering her in the ship

Ron comments on how Adama looks uncomfortable in the scene with Laura and he keeps asking for a “pretty shot of Laura” to be edited in.

There was a muffled line by Carolanne, “And whatever’s left of Bill Adama, that will have to take his place.”

After the 90 minute mark they stop the recording so Ron can go to a special effects meeting. When they pick up the next day, for some reason, the sound quality is a lot poorer.

Ok, there is a scene in CIC where Adama and Tigh are planning a jump. I have no clue why they felt this would have been needed.

Adama: Sitrep Tigh: Draedis shows clear skies. Still on course. Adama: How long to our next jump?Tigh: Calculations are being distributed. Still waiting on confirmation from three ships.Adama: Waiting has become a habit. We’re not waiting any longer. We’re going to jump in five minutes. Anybody who is not ready can play catch up. (Adama leaving undefended ships behind? Huh???)

Carolanne: That’s really good you say (something I can’t make out)…and a whole lot of people jump. Not as easy for you and me. Adama: Nothing was as easy for us.Carolanne: Guess I didn’t hop fast enough. Of course, you didn’t have the admiral bars back then. Is that why you never quit the service? Were you worried that they wouldn’t whisper about plain old Bill Adama the way they would gossip about the admiral?

At the beginning of the Lee/Adama scene:Lee: Something about a “team effort”….”And for once we had a little bit of luck. For once.”

Carolanne tells Adama that the house he is imagining they never had. In reality, they moved every six months. She begins screaming in the shrillest voice imaginable about apartments and base housing and “whatever was easiest for the great Adama”.

After Lee reveals what he and Zak’s life was really like:

Carolanne: They needed a father. I tried. I tried. But after awhile I just couldn’t stand it. They were still a part of you. (So, she hated her kids because they reminded her of Adama? Nice.)Adama: They were our children.Carolanne: Terrible mother. No mystery there. That’s why you keep calling me back. All through your glorious career you prided yourself on being a leader of men, judging people...always making the hard call. (And then she goes into the bit we saw/heard about his fears of being wrong from day one and calling into question all of his decisions.)

Adama: I can’t believe she’d do that to you. To you and Zak. Lee: I can read a calendar dad. I was born four months after you married her. Maybe she felt pressured. Adama: You had nothing to do with that son. I loved her…

Here is something I thought I’d never say - bless Ron Moore. It’s hard to make out, but I could hear him comment on the calendar remark being a different subject and to lose it. As I feared when I first read the sides and it indicated that Carolanne was pregnant when she and Adama married, it was just one more thing Lee was going to absorb guilt about. Adama’s line trying to reassure him it had nothing to do with that/him reinforces my fears. It’s enough Lee had to deal with the abuse and, most likely, trying to protect Zak, I don’t think he needs to carry around the burden of thinking his parents misery was his fault. Beside, no way is he 29! ;p

During the rescue mission briefing you hear someone say, “Major Adama, Captain Thrace…” and then Lee say “Starbuck thinks she may have something on the hanger deck” followed by Adama telling Lee, “Go.” Ron didn’t feel the bit about Starbuck was necessary.

After Adama’s comment about Cottle prepping the hyperbaric chamber:

Adama: Tell them to hold the raptor. I’m going out there. (Something about “the raptor is prepped…” and “Apollo and Starbuck…”)Adama: It’s my responsibility.Tigh: You’ve done everything you can. You made the hard call.(Some more stuff I can’t quite make out.)Adama: Launch the raptor

Yeah, having Adama think he should be on a raptor during a dangerous mission would have made a lot of sense.

Adama: You're the President of the twelve Colonies. I'm the Admiral of the Colonial Fleet. Like it or not, we have certain responsibilities. (Ron says something about this being edited down because it sounded too definite.)Laura: Yes, we do, and I will be back in a few days and, if you would like, we could talk more about that night.

Ron talks a bit about the Adama/Laura scene at the end. How Adama is basically wondering if Laura would have been his girlfriend had the Cylons not come back, but they did. He opens the door on the possibility now, then closes it.

Laura comments about how she hated the gym and isn’t going back.

Adama comments to Carolanne, “I’ll never forgive you for what you did to Lee and Zak.”

Oh, interesting! Thank you! I'm still happy with the way this episode turned out--we soooo didn't need Bill's toilet scene, and NO WAY was Lee 25 in the mini!! I'm also a selfish Lee fan who is happy that the final cut made it Lee who came up with the rescue plan, not Kara. For once. It fit well with the focus of the ep.

You're welcome. :) I don't know what the show's obsession is with the bathroom. First, we were suppose to have the scene of Adama shaving back in 'Eye of Jupiter' (I think that's the ep) and now him sitting on the toilet.

It wasn’t so long ago she was a third rate secretary of education. (OK, since this Carolanne is a manifestation of Adama’s mind, revealing his thoughts and what he believes to be true, does he feel this way about Laura? It makes no sense.)

i was watching the mini series this weekend (and the past weekend too, it's on tv ALL THE TIME, and i can't help myself) and i def had the feeling that that's EXACTLY the way he felt about her in the beginning. in pegasus, when cain asks "the secretary of education?" he simply goes "she's come a long way". and, finally, i can't forget their conversation in ldyb2. so yeah, i def think he thought about her that way, and he still sees her (in retrospective) as not fit for the job. he knows/believes she's grown into the part, but i think that if asked outright, he'll admit to thinking she kinda sucked in the beginning. he did not like her back then either, so i kind of like the fact that caroleanna vocalizes those feelings. he's trying, throught the ep, to both talk himself out and into "feeling" anything for laura, so it only makes sense his mind'd use whatever arguments it can.

Hee. You made sense. And I agree he did not like her at all when they first met and it wasn't until the last half of last season that they became allies/friends. I just felt it was an odd sentiment for him to be thinkng about now considering how far they have come and I'm glad it was one of the lines they lost.

well, i too am glad they lost it, but i to me it made sense. he didn't talk about himself in glamorous terms either. i think that in a way he was trying to diminish what they had built. and maybe, a little, talk himself into believing it didn't really mean much. he was basically tearing appart the myth he had built around both her and himself with the whole "godlike" thing, and on which carolanne calls him.

Thanks for transcribing all this - I'm assuming it was some sort of podcast special edition?

There are a couple of things I'm glad they cut - the shotgun wedding thing being one of them. Also I'm glad they avoided applying more definite dates to things. I can actually handle Lee being 29 and I think it fits with the "thirty years ago" comment in Scattered (was it 30 years?). Also they spent nine months on the run, a year on New Caprica, another four months occupied, that's two years and a month up to Collaborators. Even if another five months have passed since then, that's still two and a half years not four. Which could put Lee as old as 27 and just made Captain which I feel is a little more plausible.

However, I'm glad they didn't specify dates because from what I remember of the sides and what they implied about Carolanne's age when she got married, and how old we know Adama must be (45 years of service); there was some icky sort of age gap where thirty-something Adama knocked up barely-twenty Carolanne. (Which, okay, not always an icky age-gap, but the point is...I remember being squicked by it in the sides. Course this could all be my stupid attempts at making Adama-chronology adhere to the laws of the space-time continuum.)

Regaring "Carolanne's" comments about Laura Roslin being a third-rate secretary of education, I would explain it as follows:

She's Adama's subconscious, yes, but his subconscious version of his shrewish wife who he might very well imagine insultine Laura, either because of his guilt regarding his proto-romance with her, or because Carolanne's just like that, or because he's in the middle of beating himself up with his imaginary-ex-wife as a tool, and he's making himself out to be as ass. So he's attributing nastier thoughts to himself (and he didn't take Roslin seriously at first - "It's the middle of a war and you're taking orders from a schoolteacher?!"). Or, heck, it's playing into Carolanne's comment that it took the genocide of his people FINALLY help his failing career. And Roslin's too. And it sounds more dramatic to go from third-rate secretary of eduction and caretaker of a museum to President and Admiral, than successful politician at the top of her field and honourably retiring and respected Commander to Admiral and President.

Honestly, I think the best explanation is Carolanne's personality type - Adama's just applying it to this situation and imagining her take on things.

I think this is in lieu of a normal podcast, which is fine, but I wonder what they'll do for the DVD release?

I can actually handle Lee being 29 and I think it fits with the "thirty years ago" comment in Scattered (was it 30 years?).

I *think* it was 30, but then that 30 years ago comment was actually made about two years ago (their time line) which would put Lee around 32 which, yes!, that makes sense to me. :)

I remember your squickiness and I'm glad we were able to avoid that. ;-)

Honestly, I think the best explanation is Carolanne's personality type - Adama's just applying it to this situation and imagining her take on things.

You and nyuszi make good points and the commetn does make sense from a certain perspective. However, I'm glad the line (as well as many others ;) ultimately was cut because it takes you out of the moment. We're suppose to be seeing this relationship, whatever it is, developing between Adama and Laura and it seemed clear that Ron wanted to indicate something was going on between them. So to suddenly hear Adama's subconcious insult Laura just makes you pause, think about other things, and not what you are seeing on screen.

Hmmm. This isn't the first time that EJO has tried to show Bill on the porcelain throne. I wonder why he thinks we'd be interested in that? :/

I rather wish they'd left in the tidbit about Lee's unplanned birth. Jamie included it as part of Lee's published biography, so he has already incoporated it into Lee's psyche and into how he plays the character. I think it helps to explain the source of Lee's less-admirable behaviors earlier this season. If he feels that he was to some degree to blame for his parents' rushed and ultimately miserable marriage, it goes a long way toward explaining his recurrent commitment issues.

And I really wish they'd left in Bill's harsher condemnation of Carolanne's abuse toward their children. The final cut made him seem rather callous about the situation, telling Lee to just stop criticizing Carolanne because "She was still your mother Lee. And I loved her." He almost seemed to be condoning the abuse or dismissing it as inconsequential. Perhaps that was RDM's intent? To imply that Bill always knew what was going on and was willfully looking the other way, because that was the more convenient choice for the military man who couldn't take sole custody of the kids?

I think Lee's commitment issues are sufficiently explained by his parents rocky marriage, subsequent divorce, the abandonment by his father, and watching his mother go from bad (mood swings) to worse (raging alcoholic). And Lee doesn't want to repeat his parents failures by ending up in a bad relationship and causing someone else to be unhappy, yet he seems to find himself in that position anyway and is working hard now to make his marriage a success. What I would be fascinated to see now is if Lee, through the law rather than the military, ends up putting work first and *that* takes a toll on his marriage, not Kara.

I do agree that hearing Adama condemn Carolanne would have vastly improved my opinion of him. The way the ep was ultimately cut we are either left to believe, at best, he doesn't want to hear the truth and what he unwittingly let his children endure or, at worst, he knew and chose to ignore it. Neither take paints him in a favorable light and if we discovered he really was clueless then I would have felt some sympathy for him at the end. Still, if he was that clueless how often did he see his kids?